Kenwood Preschool & the Convent of the Scared Heart by Stephen Kerwin

Each time I drive down Southern Boulevard into Albany and I see the entrance to Kenwood I remember the many morning commutes from my childhood home in Bethlehem. My parents both worked for the state, and so every weekday from 1988-1993 was spent at Kenwood Preschool.

For my classmates and I, the Preschool was a cavernous maze which seemed to never end (all the more exciting as we were rightly not allowed to explore unsupervised!). The windows in each classroom stretched impossibly tall to our young eyes, and the grounds served as an amazing place to adventure when the weather permitted. I remember our class sitting near the Gatehouse on South Pearl on the stone wall, encouraging passing truck drivers leaving the Port to tug their air horn for us (a very exciting activity for preschoolers as you might imagine).

“I remember our class sitting near the Gatehouse on South Pearl on the stone wall, encouraging passing truck drivers leaving the Port to tug their air horn for us

The building seemed to stretch into eternity, and though we didn’t have any interaction with the students at nearby Doane Stuart, we did visit the convent to see the nuns occasionally . I remember every year we would walk through the convent for our Halloween Parade to show them our costumes.

My favorite part of preschool (as you might have guessed) was the playground! It was a large wooden structure very typical of the time - I still have a scar on my knee from a rather serious game of tag.

I was surprised when the school closed down, it introduced me to one of my oldest friends and I appreciated even back then what an impressive (and slightly daunting!) building it was. I hope to see it back in reuse again soon - I’d love to visit and see what other memories came back to me.